Like every other Corel shareholder, I am also disappointed. Looking back, we can see that while Cowpland had his good calls, he has had more bad calls. Bad calls include everything from investing heavily in Macintosh software development, to spending too much on advertising, to paying millions for promotions (i.e., the Arena), to developing useless games and edutainment titles in a flooded market, to making false predictions about the company's financial prospects, to over-emphasizing the battle with Microsoft, to suggesting to Forbes that by developing Office for Java Corel is putting *everything* on the line, to not being liked by analysts and reporters (for age, style, or substantive reasons--we don't care and we shouldn't care as shareholders), to possibly even purchasing WP.
Luckily, the good folks under him are still coming up with good products. In fact, one can see some ascendancy in both kind and quality of the software. The good reviews for Ventura 7, Click & Create, PhotoPaint, Lumiere, Print & Photo House, and other products will hopefully show up as earnings. Office for Java is still the big mystery: it won't be before the end of the year until we get a sense of whether it will be a source of earnings or not. Also, we have to see how WebMaster Suite will be doing, and most importantly, of course, how well WP 8 will be doing.
It is a good move to spin off the hardware division and to sell the edutainment titles. It is also a good move to be cutting advertising, although in the short term they need to do even more of that. I see some reason for optimism, and notice that Zacks still shows 3 analysts recommending a Moderate Buy on Corel, and 3 recommending a Hold, while only 2 a Sell.
I think Cowpland should do the right thing and RESIGN. He is accountable to us all. He has made many bad calls. His 1,400 employees are suffering as well by having their stock holdings go down in value.
There is still optimism, and by March 1998 we will know for sure whether the stock was a good purchase or not. Cowpland already had his chance, though, and he MUST resign NOW. |
